FIVE new sports will be introduced to the Olympic Games at Tokyo 2020, the International Olympic Committee announced today – and we are here to help all of them through sports crowdfunding.

A total of 28 sports will be played at the Rio 2016 Games over the next two weeks, but these leave out hugely progressive disciplines that the IOC has now recognised – and we’re delighted!

At the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, Baseball/Softball, Karate, Skateboarding, Sports Climbing, and Surfing will all be on the agenda, adding 18 events and 474 competitors to the Olympic schedule.

PledgeSports.org Founder and CEO, Richard Pearson, said: “We’ve already helped fund some serious surfers, skateboarders and karate fighters and are delighted that they may now get the chance to become Olympians.

“Our sports crowdfunding platform has already boosted training and qualification funds for many athletes now bound for Rio 2016’s Games, and it is already supporting the Tokyo 2020 bids of many others, as well as raising funds for the Irish Rio 2016 Paralympics Squad.”

In an interesting twist, plans call for staging the skateboarding and sports climbing events in temporary venues installed in urban settings, reflecting the trend of urbanisation of sport.

In an IOC statement, president Thomas Bach said: “We want to take sport to the youth. With the many options that young people have, we cannot expect any more that they will come automatically to us. We have to go to them.

“Tokyo 2020’s balanced proposal fulfils all of the goals of the Olympic Agenda 2020 recommendation that allowed it.

“Taken together, the five sports are an innovative combination of established and emerging, youth-focused events that are popular in Japan and will add to the legacy of the Tokyo Games.”

The Organising Committee for the Tokyo 2020 Games proposed the five new sports in response to the new flexibility provided by Olympic Agenda 2020.

The recommendation to give Organising Committees the flexibility to propose new sports for their edition of the Games was intended to put even more focus on innovation, flexibility and youth in the development Olympic programme.

Tokyo 2020, the first Organising Committee able to take advantage of the change, submitted its proposal for the five new sports to the IOC in September 2015.

Discussions on the event programme in the existing 28 Olympic sports for the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 are ongoing, and will be finalised by the IOC Executive Board in mid-2017.